The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-12-12

ages, and | say TO these young theological
students, who cluster in these services Sab
bath by Sabbath, sharpen your wits as
Keen as scinitars, and then take them into
this holy war.
1t is very short bridge between a smile
and tear a suspension bridge from eye to
lip, and it is soon crossed over, and a smile
Is sometimes Just as sacred as n tear. There
Is as much religion, and | think q little
more, in aspiring morning than in a starleSs
night. Religious work without any humor
or wit in it is a banquet with side of beef,
and that raw, and no condiments, and no
dessert succeeding. People will not sit down
at such banquet. BY all means remove all
frivolity and all bathos and all lighthess and
all vulgarity-- strain them out through the
sieve of holy discrimination; but on the
other hand, beware of that monster which
overshadows the Christian church to-day,
conventionality, coming up from the Great
Sahara Desert of Ecclesiasticism, having on
its back a hump of sanctimonious gloom,
and vehemently refuse to swallow that
camel.
Oh, how particular a great many people
are about the intinitesimals while they are
quite reckless about the magnitudes What
did Christ says Did He not excoriate the
people in His time who were so careful TO
wash their hands before a meal. hut did not
wash their heartss 1t is q bad thing to
have unclean hands; it is a worse thing TO
have an unclean heart. How many people
there are in our time who are very anxious
that after their death they shall be buried
with their feet toward the east, and not at
all anxious that during their whole life
they should face in the right direction so
that they shall come up III the resurrection
OF the just whichever way they are buried.
How many there are chiefly anxious that a
minister of the Gospel shall come in the
line of apostolic succession, not caring so
much whether he comes from Apostle Paul
or Apostle Judas. Thcy have way of
measuring a gnat until it is larger than a
camel.
Again, my subject photographs all those
who are abhorrent of small sins while they
are reckless IN regard to magnificent thefts.
You will find many merchant who, while
he Is careful that he would not take yard
of cloth or a spool of cotton from the coun-
ter without paying for it, and who, If a
bank cashier should make a mistake and
send in a roll of bills I've dollars too much,
would dispatch messenger in hot haste to
return the surplus, yet who will go into a
stock company, in which after awhile he
gets control of the stock, and then waters
the stock and makes one hundred thousand
dollars appear like two hundred thousand
dollars. He only stole one hundred thousand
dollars by the operation. Many of the men
of fortune made their wealth in that way
One OF those men, engaged in such unright-
eous acts, that evening, the evening
oe the very day when no watered
the stock, will find wharf-rat
stealing a newspaper from the basement
doorway, and will go out and catch the
urchin by the collar, and twist the collar
so tightly the poor fellow cannot say that
it was thirst for knowledge that led him TO
the dishonest act, but grip the collar tighter
and tighter, saying, 81 have been looking
for you long while; you stole my paper
four or five times, haven't youl you miser-
able wretch" And then the old stock
gambler with a voice they can hear three
blocks will cry out, Police police" That
same man, the evening of the day in which
he watered the stock, will kneel with his
family in PRAYERS and thank God for the
prosperity of the day, then kiss his children
goodnight with an air which seems to say,
II hope you will all grow up to be as good
as your father" Prisons for sins insectile
in size, but palaces for crimes dromedarian.
No mercy for sins animalcule in proper
ton, but great leniency for mastodon in
iquity. A poor boy silly takes from the
basket of a market woman choke pear
saving some one else from the cholera--and
you smother him in the horrible atmosphere
Of Raymond street Jail or New York
Tombs, while his cousin, who has been skill
Iul eIlOtlSn W SOtll HAty uOlldTS
from the city, you will make him candi-
date for the New York Legislaturel
There is great deal of uueasiness and
nervousness now among some people in our
time who have gotten unrighteous fortunes,
u great deal of nervousness about dynamite.
l tell them that God will put under their
unrighteous fortunes something more ex-
plosve than dynamite, the earthquake Of
HIS omnipotent indignation. 1t is time that
we learn in America that sin is not mex
cusable in proportion as it declares large
dividends and has outriders in equipage.
Many a man is riding to perdition position
ahead-lackey behind. To steal one copyof
a newspaper is a gnat; to steal many thous-
ands of dollars is camel. There is many
fruit dealer who would not consent to steal
a basket of peaches from neighbours stall,
but who would not scruple to depress the
fruit market; and as long as / can remember
we have heard every summer the peach crop
of Maryland is failure. and by the time the
crop comes in the Misrepresentation makes
a difference of millions of dollars A man
who would not steal one peach basket steals
fifty thousand peach baskets. Go down in
the summer time into the Mercantile Lii
brary, in the reading-rooms, aud see the
newspaper reports of the crops from all
parts OF the country, and their phraseology
is very much the same, and the same men
NIOOc blSlp iilcbiiOulE1AtJ
carrying out the huge lying about the grain
crop from year to year and for a score of
years After a while there will be ''cor-
nern in the wheat market, and mon who had
a contempt for petty theft will burglarize
the wheat bin of nation and commit lar
ceny upon the American corn-crib. And
some of the men will sit in churches and in
reformatory institutions trying to strain out
the small gnats of scoundrelism, while in
their grain elevators and their storehouses
they are fattening huge camels which they
expect after a while to swallow. Society
has 10 be entirely reconstructed on this sub
ject We are to find that a sin is inexcusa-
bic in proportion as it is great.
know in our time the tendency is TO
charge religious frauds upon good men
They say, "Oh, what class of frauds You
have in the Church of God in this day.
and when an elder of church, or deacon,
or a minister of the Gospel, or superin-
tendent of a Sabbath school turns out de-
faulter, what display heads there are in
many of the newspapers. Great primer
type. Five-line plea. Another Saint Alb
scondedn "Clerical Scoundrelisin," "Re-
ligion at a Discount" ''Shame on the
Churches while there are a thousand
scoundrels outside the church TO where there
is one inside the church, and the misbe-
havior of those who never see the inside Of
a church is so great it is enough to tempt a
man to become a Christian to get out Of
their company. But in all circles, religious
and ifreligious, the tendency is to excuse